Bou Hajla

Bou Hajla lies in the steppe plain south of Kairouan, in central Tunisia, a semi-arid country of cereal fields, olive groves and open grazing. Kairouan was founded in 670 as the first Arab city of Ifriqiya, and the plain around it was later overrun by the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, Arab pastoral tribes who moved into the country from the middle of the eleventh century and made herding and horse breeding central to local life. From 1705 the region fell under the Husainid beys of Tunis.

Local devotion gathers around Sidi Amor Bou Hajla, a Sufi patron whose tomb anchors the religious life of the surrounding villages and tribes. Horses and livestock have practical importance in this countryside, and the saint’s shrine joined devotion with the skills and work of rural people. Agriculture, markets and pilgrimage remain the main threads for understanding the town.